Princess Sarah :)

This is a picture of me and one of my best friends, Sarah Arnesen. :) We took this in front of a gorgeous lake in British Columbia, Canada.

I met Sarah fall of 2009, my first semester of college. I remember my first impression of her: she was a first semester senior, sat second chair in Symphony, was incredibly talented and nice, and had a lot of pink things :) Due to a lot of things, I didn't get to Sarah super well that semester; we started hanging out a little bit more towards the end of that first semester. The next time I saw her was on the night of her senior recital (which was completely amazing, by the way :) ) and then a few days later when I went back to Rexburg to get ready for the Sinfonietta tour.

Being on a bus together 24/7 for 2 weeks can make anyone close, but Sarah and I were host-family buddies several times over tour. One of the best memories? The Scary Cat House.

We were staying at a house in Canada, one of the awkward-family houses where the hosts would bring us home, help us with our bags, show us our room...and basically leave us alone for the night. This was great on the nights we were exhausted...but not so great on the nights we were actually still functioning and wanting to be social. Anyway, one of the first things this family asks us is how we feel about cats, noting that they had two that were allowed in the house, and if they bothered us, we could just put them outside our room. We were staying in the little boys' room, which had a bunk bed, and, after the hosts had left us, Sarah and I started talking (we did this a lot over those two weeks). After we had stayed up until after midnight, we finally decided to go to bed, and Sarah got up to put the cats, who had been hanging out with us since we arrived, out of the room. She let both of the cats out; we checked the room for more; then we shut the door and got ready for bed. At about three in the morning, I woke suddenly, feeling something on my stomach; it was one of the cats. Needless to say, it freaked me out a little. When Sarah heard me awake, she said, "Is the cat up there with you? It was just down here with me..." Well, in groggy fashion we grabbed the cat and put it out--again. We had climbed back into our bunks when the obvious question rose: "....how did that cat get in here??" There was only one way into the room: the door through which Sarah had put both cats and had shut carefully behind them. We still don't know: how did that cat get into our room????

This is just one of the many wonderful memories I've made with Sarah :) She's such a great inspiration to me in a lot of different ways. She is an amazing friend and an incredible cellist. Her close relationship with the Lord and deep knowledge and understanding of the gospel inspires me to do/be better. She has the enviable ability to see the good in everyone. And, most importantly, she understands the value of being a good princess :) Thanks for being such a good friend and example to me, Sarah! Love you tons! :)